Processing Translational Motion Sequences

• Main Author: Lawton,Daryl T
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: CARTESIAN COORDINATES; CONTOURS; DISPLACEMENT; EXTRACTION; HISTOGRAMS; IMAGE MOTION COMPENSATION; IMAGE PROCESSING; Numerical Mathematics; Optics; Photography; Robust procedures; SEQUENCES; Translational motion sequences

This paper presents a procedure for processing real world image sequences produced by relative translational motion between a sensor and environmental objects. In this procedure, the determination of the direction of sensor translation is effectively combined with the determination of the displacements of image features and environmental depth. It requires no restrictions on the direction of motion, nor the location and shape of environmental objects. It has been applied successfully to real-world image sequences from several different task domains. The processing consists of two basic steps: Feature Extraction and Search. The feature extraction process picks out small image areas which may correspond to distinguishing parts of environmental objects. The direction of translational motion is then found by a search which determines the image displacement paths along which a measure of feature mismatch is minimized for a set of features. The correct direction of translation will minimize this error measure and also determine the corresponding image displacement paths for which the extracted features match well.